Agenda Item No. 17
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FROM: Fermin Preciado, Director of Development Services/City Engineer Benjamin Matlock, Planning Manager/City Planner
FOR: City Council Meeting of February 13, 2023
That City Council provide direction to staff to continue the use of on -call consultants for Professional Environmental Review Services related to the entitlement of private land development projects.
The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is a law that was established in the early 1970s to document and disclose project -related impacts to the environment during the decision -making process. All discretionaryl projects "which may cause either a direct physical change in the environment, or a reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment" that are undertaken by the City are subject to the CEQA review process.
Many smaller scale discretionary projects will qualify for an exemption from CEQA, which limits the total necessary review; however, many larger projects, may require the preparation of Initial Studies (IS) and/or Negative Declarations (NDs), Mitigated Negative Declarations (NINDs), or Environmental Impact Reports (EIRs), along with supporting environmental technical studies, to provide the substantial evidence in the record to ensure that the analysis is adequate, that the decision makers are informed on the Project -related impacts, and that the decision can be best defended should there be a lawsuit.
During the last several years, the City has required the services of one or more consulting firm(s) to provide on -call project environmental review services to support our own Capital Improvement Projects, which have helped to streamline and strengthen our construction delivery process, meet the required inter -agency coordination and to ultimately obtain any required resource agency permits with the respective state and federal agencies to deliver these projects to construction.
As part of the approval process for private land development projects, the support to deliver the appropriate environmental review is also crucial, and often the environniental-related impacts are key issues that surrounding residents may have from those projects. Up until a few years ago, staff -L4call% oora eti t4e -tece extq] rei wte ectis 'mv in - ' Ministerial projects, meaning projects that are approved by staff, are not subject to CEQA 398
City Council Meeting of February 13, 2023
On -call Professional Environmental Review Services for Private Development Projects
house staff, except in instances where an EIR was required. However, at the July 13, 2020, City Council Meeting, the City Council recognized that the technical standards, analytical methods, computer models, and legal requirements needed to comply with the continuously evolving CEQA process have continued to expand, and the associated staff resources required in order to prepare the necessary environmental review documents to meet these requirements are becoming untenable.
For context, the CEQA review document consists of 21 distinct topics of review, with a number of related technical questions that must be addressed for each of these specific topics. As part of the CEQA process, a number of technical studies that include but are not limited to topics such as biological resources, air quality, noise, and traffic are typically necessary to provide the requisite "substantial evidence" to support the appropriate environmental conclusions. Utilizing qualified professionals that are specialized in these fields will provide more comprehensive and appropriate review. Further, having a team preparing the documents in lieu of a single staff member assigned to a project would provide more efficient utilization of the current staffing levels; other unrelated private land applications could indirectly benefit from the improved efficiencies in staff time and result in a faster development review process.
Further, CEQA-based lawsuits are a common tactic used by a variety of law firms and special interest groups to stop or otherwise delay the project review process, representing a liability for the timely processing of private land development applications. As the City Council is aware, some of these firms will submit a several hundred -page document during the day of the meeting, which includes a variety of points that need to be assessed and ultimately addressed during the meeting to safeguard the approval of a project. Many of the professional environmental firms are familiar with these organizations and are able to more quickly and comprehensively clarify and address those issues.
Since the initial execution of these contracts two years ago, City Council has allowed for the use of on -call consultants to complete the necessary environmental review process for private development projects. However, staff ultimately continued to prepare many of these environmental documents or peer reviews in-house for certain private land development projects due to their opposition with this updated approach. However, as the number of project applications has increased, including several more complex General Plan Amendment applications and other potentially contentious projects, the current staffing levels combined with these increasingly complex requirements for CEQA compliance had made it untenable to continue with the practice of staff preparing and reviewing the necessary documents in-house.
At the regular meeting of August 8, 2022, the City Council directed staff to transition to the on - call consultants to best facilitate the process, and to revisit the item in 6 months to make adjustments as necessary. This decision recognized that Planning Division has seen a notable increase in the number of private development planning applications received, with the last year representing the highest level of activity in over a decade and the 4 th highest since City incorporation. Since that time, most developers have used the on -call services and the project schedules are on track with their review. However, several proposals from our on -call consultants were provided to support review of several different General Plan Amendments that have been proposed to "upzone" properties. No action has been taken by the respective developer on those proposals since they were provided several months ago, which has created unnecessary delays for the review and processing of those projects.
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City Council Meeting of February 13, 2023
On -call Professional Environmental Review Services for Private Development Projects
The use of on -call environmental consultants for the review of private land development projects is common to many cities, including every city that surrounds Yucaipa as well as all the cities surveyed in Inland Empire, which includes Calimesa, Redlands, Highland, Loma Linda, Colton, Ontario, and Rancho Cucamonga. Due to similar staff and workload constraints, these cities have relied on environmental professionals to strengthen the review process, which has helped to better protect cities and private development applicants by having the impartial analysis completed by those deemed qualified by the city. Ultimately, cities are responsible for the environmental review process and the content thereof must reflect the independent judgment of the city, not the developer. Further, freeing up staff from working on these comprehensive review documents, where they would instead serve as a project manager/coordinator to complete the work, allows these other communities to better balance the other daily tasks of their planning departments, including a focus on customer service -related elements.
As such, staff recommends maintaining the use of on -call consultants to better optimize the existing staff resources and to use the teams of highly experienced consultants that are experts in their field to provide stronger and more legally defensible environmental documents that safeguard the project review process better and to ultimately benefit the overall community. In addition, Council may consider allowing more administrative approval for certain projects, which would allow those projects to not be subject to CEQA.
Approved by:
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